Category Archives: Poland

Today, Monday, April 23rd, is the feast of St. Wojciech/Adalbert, who is revered as one of Poland’s oldest saints and in fact one of the great patron saints of the Polish nation. He is a saint also of great importance to us, Polish-Americans of the Archdiocese of Detroit, because the very first Polish parish in the city of Detroit was placed from its very beginning under the protections and patronage of St. Wojciech. Wojciech was born of a noble family in Bohemia in 956, ten ears before Poland became a Christian nation with the baptism of King Mieszko the first bishop of Magdeburg. It should also be noted that Adalbert and Wojciech are two different names, not the Latin and Polish equivalents of the same name! The name Wojciech in Slavonic means “Help of the army.” The English name of Detroit’s first Polish parish “Albertus” was the name mistakenly given to the church at the time of its dedication. Albertus is the Latin form of Abert. This mistake was never corrected in the 117 year history of the parish, which closed in 1989.

As a child, Wojciech was consecrated to the Blessed Virgin by his parents who feared losing him to sickness. They promised the Virgin that Wojciech would live under her patronage with the clergy. Wojciech received an excellent education at the cathedral school of Magdeburg. In 982 he was ordained a subdeacon by the bishop of Prague. Though only 27 years of age, he was elected bishop of Prague in 983, after the sudden death of the previous bishop. Wojciech entered the city of Prague barefoot as a symbol of his humility. He was received with enthusiasm by Boleslaus II, prince of Bohemia, and all the people of that city. He proceeded to reorganize the diocese but was saddened to learn of the religious state of his flock. Most were Christian in name only. He withdrew to Rome in 990 but returned to Prague in 994 at the insistence of Pope John XV. Again he encountered difficulties and a refusal to accept the true gospel in Prague, which caused him to withdraw from Prague to Rome. Once again the Pope, Gregory V at this time, ordered him back to Prague.

The people of Prague, however, refused to admit Wojciech to the diocese and so he turned his attention to the conversion of Poland (Pomerania) to Christianity as a missionary. He made converts at Gdansk but later met with scorn as he and his companions were accused of being spies.

On April 23rd, 997, he and his companions were martyred near Krolewiec by being beaten to death with oars. After severing his head and fixing it on a pole which was carried throughout the village, his body was thrown into the Nogat River, a tributary of the Wistula, and washed up on the Polish coast. The body was held for ransom by heathens who received a small fortune, the weight of the body in gold, from Boleslaus, Duke of Poland, for its return. Later in 998 his body was enshrined in Gniezno; some of his relics, however, were returned by force to Prague in 1039. Adalbert was canonized a saint in the year 1000.

When St. Albertus parish was organized by the St. Stanislaus Kostka Society (a group of Polish immigrants attending the nearby German St. Joseph Church) they chose the Bohemian born St. Adalbert/Wojciech as their patron. The date of the meeting of organization of the new parish was April 23rd, 1870, the feast of St. Wojciech. He was a fitting choice for patron as many of the early parishioners of the Church had come from that area of Poland known as Pomerania and Poznania where St. Wojciech had ministered. They were known as Kaszubs and spoke a dialect of Polish heavily influenced by the German language.

Wojciech was the first great adopted patron of the Christian Polish nation. He had been venerated for over eight centuries as Protector of the Poles when he was selected to be the patron of Detroit’s first Polish parish which was primarily composed of Kaszubs.

When the first St. Albertus Church was dedicated on Sunday, July14th, 1872, the name of the patron was inadequately translated from the Latin Adalbertus to the English Albertus, thus forever identifying Detroit’s first Polish parish by the misnomer Albertus. Such is life! For better or worse, the Mother Church of the Detroit Polonia is known, at least in English, as St. Albertus.

My great grandparents, Szymon and Ludwika Lipa were members of St. Albertus parish in Detroit when they first immigrated to the U.S. Some of my grandaunts and uncles were baptized and buried from that parish as well.

Although I was never a member of that parish myself, I created a website for the parish and served as webmaster for several years.

I have numerous Granduncles and a couple grandfathers named for St Wojciech.

My mother, who always held her Polish heritage near and dear to her heart, died on this day in 2007.

I had intended to write about St. Wojciech in honor of his feast day today but when I read the very nice article Fr. Borkowski had written I knew I could do no better.

I come from a long line of Polish Catholics. I’ve long been interested in how my ancestors celebrated the various holidays, saint’s feast days, and other holy days. The Catholic Poles had many, many religious ceremonies and prayer services unheard of here in the United States or elsewhere in the world. Poland has long been a country that struggled for peace, was dominated and taken over by its neighbors, and suffered when those neighbors tried to extinguish its very culture. Through it all, the strong faith of the people of this predominantly Catholic country has prevailed. It’s enlightening to take a look at the religious rites that were and still are practiced in Poland, the land of my ancestors. Here is an example of a Polish Catholic prayer service for the Advent season.

A traditional Polish observance of the season of Advent differs greatly from the heavily commercialized time before Christmas in this country. It is a time of reflection and spiritual preparation for the coming of Christ at Christmas. The word advent comes from the Latin adventus which means the coming. We await the coming of the Messiah not only in the flesh but also for His second coming as Judge at the end of the world. Hope is the dominant characteristic of the season of Advent. There is a focus during the season on our longing for God’s grace and His friendship. It is understood that parties, weddings, and other boisterous events would be an obstacle to the search for God’s grace and building that friendship, and so they are avoided. Advent is also a time for reconciliation with God through the Sacrament of Penance.

Throughout advent many people in Poland participate in an early morning Mass called Roraty. It begins just before sunrise in almost complete darkness in the church. The name roraty comes from the ancient Latin chant that is sung to begin the service: Rorate Coeli, de super; et nubes pluant justum – O Heavens, drop down your dew from on high and may the Just One be rained by the clouds. The words of the ancient hymn are a plea for God’s gift of His Son. As the hymn is sung candles are gradually lit in the dark church. Roraty is a kind of daily Advent vigil ceremony. The people wait in darkness not only for the rising of the sun but ultimately for the return of the Son of God, so beautifully symbolized by dawn’s first light.

The roraty service has a definite Marian dimension to it as does the entire season of Advent. In the sanctuary is found one special candle that is more predominate than the others used in the ceremony. It is traditionally decorated with greenery and white ribbon in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who plays and important role in the raining down of the Just One.

The Advent roraty ceremony originated in the 13th century during the reign of King Boleslaw Wstydliwy (the Bashful) who was the husband of St Kinga. According to historical documents, a representative of every social state lit one candle of a specially prepared seven-branch candelabrum in the cathedral at the early morning service, starting with the king. As each man lit his candle he proclaimed: Paratus sum ad adventum Domini/Gotow jestem na pryjscie Pana – I am ready for the coming of the Lord! After the king lit his candle he was followed by the cardinal primate, then a senator, a nobleman, a knight, a townsman and finally the seventh candle was lit by a peasant farmer.

Preparation for the Lord’s coming, both interior and spiritual as well as exterior and temporal is an integral part of a truly Catholic observance of the holy season of Advent.

My Godmother was my favorite aunt. Cecilia Laska was born November 18, 1912 in Detroit, Michigan. She always went by, “Ceily”, so to me she was “Auntie Ceily”. She was closest in age to my dad and was the 4th child, 2nd daughter, of the 11 children of Jozef Laska and Karolina Lipa.

Ceily was a diamond among stones. She was the cultured one in the family and had refined tastes. She was the one who appreciated fine art (and had reproductions hanging in her home), music (the only one in the family to own a musical instrument), shopped at better stores and wore the nicest clothes money could buy. She even had a signature fragrance, Chanel No. 5. Whenever I smell that scent I always think of her.

Ceily Laska Sagovac, 1949

As a child I was fascinated by Auntie Ceily. I idolized her like a Hollywood movie star. I thought I was the luckiest kid on earth to have her for my Godmother. She was very good to me in the material sense but more importantly she was always kind to me. She made a point of talking to me even when there were other adults around. And she never missed an occasion to give me a gift… birthdays, Christmas, Easter, First Holy Communion, graduation. She always remembered me and I adored her. Sadly, Auntie Ceily died of lung cancer in 1989 but she will live in my heart forever.

Today, November 22, is the Feastday of St Cecilia. I’ve no doubt that my Auntie Ceily was named for St Cecilia. It was common for Poles and Americans of Polish descent to name their children after the saint whose feastday was closest to the day of their birth. It’s interesting that my Auntie Ceily and St Cecilia had some things in common too.

It is believed that St Cecilia was born in the 2nd or 3rd century AD in Rome although the exact dates of her birth and martyrdom are unknown. It’s said she was an only child born to wealthy, Christian, educated parents but promised in marriage to a pagan Roman, Valerian, when she was just a young child. Reports of her life differ from one source to another but most agree she was cultured and came from a privileged background.

Painting of St Cecilia done in 1606

A story is told of how Cecilia prayed to God and the saints to protect her virginity and after her wedding to Valerian she told him she was protected by the angels and saints. He then asked her to show him the angel protecting her. She sent him to Pope Urban (223-230) who baptized/converted him and when he returned he found Cecilia praying in a chapel and an angel with flaming wings nearby. Valerian and Cecilia were discovered in that chapel by Valerian’s brother and he was so awed by what he saw that he too converted.

Some time after that, Valerian and his brother were put to death by the Roman prefect. Then, Cecilia too was ordered to be put to death but not before she made arrangements to have her home converted into a church. As the story goes, Cecilia was first sentenced to death by steaming but she survived that. Then she was sentenced to die of beheading. Three attempts were made to behead her before her executioner gave up and fled in fear. It is said that she lingered for three days, baptizing many during that time, until she bled to death.

At some point, (some sources say when she was about to be married others say when she was on her deathbed) Cecilia “sang or heard heavenly music in her heart”. That image caught on and she was forever more known as the patron saint of music, especially church music, and musical instruments. In paintings and art work she is most often portrayed with an organ or violin.

My Auntie Ceily was no St Cecilia but I find it intriguing that she was the only one in her poor immigrant family who lived a cultured life, like the saint she was named for. And the man she married, I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a pagan but he wasn’t Catholic and she married him in a civil ceremony much to the chagrin of her parents who were devout Catholics. I’m not sure if he converted to Catholicism later in life or not but after 20 years together their marriage was finally blessed in a Catholic church. And lastly, Ceily owned first a piano and later an organ. She was the only one in the family to do so. I don’t recall her ever playing either the piano or the organ but I remember plunking away on those ivory keys when we visited her home.

Back in October 2007, I traveled to Lithuania to spend a week with my relatives. My cousins Liliana, Aidas, and Vitas showed me a side of Lithuania I never would have seen on my own.

One day, while walking through the capital city of Vilnius, Liliana brought me to Vilnius University, the oldest university in the Baltic States and Liliana’s alma mater. Within the walls of the university stood St. John’s Church (Šv. Jonų Bažnyčia).

St. John’s Church in Vilnius

SOURCE: St. John’s Church in Vilnius (Vilnius, Lithuania); photographed by Stephen J. Danko on 21 October 2007.

Saint John’s Church in Vilnius is the place where Saint Rafał Kalinowski was baptized. Born on 01 September 1835, he was baptized on 09 September 1835 with the name Józef, the second child of the Polish nobles Andrzej (Jędrzej) Kalinowski and Józefa Połońska (m. 1832). Józef’s brother Wiktor (b. 1833) had been born in Vilnius two years earlier.

Young Józef’s mother died within a few days of his birth. Józef’s father married Wiktoria Połońska (m. 1838), the sister of his deceased wife Józefa. Wiktoria gave birth to three children: Emilia (b. 1840), Karol (b. 1841), and Gabriel (b. 1845). When Józef was nine years old, his stepmother Wiktoria died. Józef’s father married again, this time to Zofia Puttkamer (m. 1848). (Zofia was the daughter of Maria Wereszczak, the first great love of famed Polish/Lithuanian poet Adam Mickiewicz). Andrzej and Zofia had four children: Maria (b. 1848), Aleksander (b. 1851), Monika (b. 1851), and Jerzy (b. 1859).

At the time Józef was born, Vilnius was part of the Wilno Gubernia of the Russian Empire. He attended university in St. Petersburg and, after graduation, Józef was appointed a lieutenant in the corps of engineers in Russia. His resigned his commission with the Russian military in 1863 and joined the insurgents against the Russian government in the January Uprising. After the failed uprising, Józef was condemned to death, a sentence that was commuted to ten years of hard labor in Siberia.

After his release from Siberia, Józef joined the Carmelite Order in Graz, Austria where he took the religious name Rafał (Raphael). Brother Rafał traveled to Györ, Hungary to complete his studies and was ordained to the priesthood in Czerna, Poland where he was appointed prior. Finally, Rafał was appointed prior and vicar provincial for the Discalced Carmelite nuns in Wadowice, Poland.

Prayer was the source and guiding principle of Rafał’s life and he worked to instill this philosophy in the Carmelite Order. Others were drawn to Rafał because of the authenticity of his prayer.

Rafał died in Wadowice on 15 November 1907 and was buried in the convent cemetery. However, large numbers of pilgrims came to visit his grave, carrying away handfuls of soil. His remains were moved to a tomb but even that solution did not deter the pilgrims who scratched at the tomb, leaving with bits of plaster. Finally, his remains were moved to a chapel in Czerna, Poland where they are today.

Rafał Kalinowski was beatified on 23 June 1983 and canonized on 17 November 1991 by Pope John Paul II. That Pope John Paul II would beatify and canonize Rafał Kalinowski is quite fitting. Eighteen years after Rafał Kalinowski died in Wadowice, Karol Wojtyła, the future Pope John Paul II, was born in the same village.

Part I: Michigan’s Catholic Displaced Persons from Poland

Walking on the park like historic campus of St. Mary’s of Orchard Lake, Michigan, you’re more likely to think of having a picnic than of World War II. But here you will find The Polish Mission’s unique museums commemorating the struggle and celebrating the survival of the Catholic Polish spirit during World War II. Tomorrow, we welcome Rita Cosby to campus, author of Quiet Hero: Secrets from my Father’s Past. Her visit and story about her father’s survival as a Catholic World War II resistance fighter is a timely lecture during the month of September. It is a somber time of remembrance for Catholic Poles throughout the world: the anniversary of the Invasion of Poland by the Nazis (1 September) and Russians (17 September). Each year we will honor the brave men and woman who fought for freedom.

The museums were created by the Polish veterans who came to Michigan as Displaced Persons, living their adult lives in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties. The museums, each with a small archive and library, document the Home Army, the Polish Army 2nd Corp, Polish Air Force, the First Polish Armored Division, Polish Army Veterans in America, and the Association of Former Political Prisoners of German and Soviet Concentration Camps. These museums hold survivor oral histories, art work, diaries, documents, photos, maps, uniforms and related ephemera.

The Michigan Humanities Council granted funding to The Polish Mission to develop a catalog for the general public and online lesson plans for middle and high School teachers. These exhibits, publications, and online tools serve to document the war experiences of the Catholic Polish soldiers, families, and survivors and help dispel the growing body of Holocaust revisionist literature which includes denying it happened or refusing to call the camps by the proper term “Nazi Concentration Camps in occupied Poland”. The grant work allows the museums to be shared with a wider community who, because of the Cold War and Iron Curtain, may be unaware of the deaths of 3 million Polish Christians at the hands of the Nazi and Russian armies. The museum collections transcend religion and speak of struggle and suffering as well as the hope for freedom and liberation. On a research trip to Poland with the Polish Mission Director Marcin Chumiecki, we met with museum curators and archivists who are maintaining similar collections of camp art, survivor art, and autobiographies and they await The Polish Mission’s online collections. <http://polishmission.com>.

As we prepare the catalog and exhibitions for digital display, the ancestry.com databases have helped document and help is tell a more complete history about these survivors.

What have we found? Here is a sample story that illustrates what we’ve located so far. On display in our Association of Former Political Prisoners of German and Soviet Concentration Camps (AFPPGSCC) museum hangs twelve paintings and drawings by Jan Komski. A trained artist from Krakow, he was captured by the Nazis as he crossed the border to join the Polish Free Army. His art kept him alive, drawing greeting cards and painting bourgeois landscapes for the Nazis’ and their girlfriends. Komski was assigned work duty the print shop, which gave him access to drawing materials. He and a few fellow inmates fooled the Nazis by painting credentials, staging a phony work detail, and walked out of the gates! Unfortunately, he was later recapture, and I was able to find him in two of the five camps he was an inmate. He was one was one of the 750 Polish prisoners who arrived at Auschwitz on June 14, 1940, the first day that the camp was opened. His card was obtained from the Archives of Auschwitz where he was listed with an alias (Baras) not uncommon for Polish underground soldiers. Note he gave the correct birth date.

The Auschwitz Museum holds 106 of Komski’s paintings. After coming to America, he became an illustrator for the Washington Post and he gave an interview for the 1973 the employees’ newsletter “Shop Talk” and said:

The reason I am doing these paintings is because I always thought it only destiny or providence that allowed me to live when I knew there were tens of thousands of people who died there. . . . I wanted to do something to show the misery.

O Most holy Virgin, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ: by the overwhelming grief you experienced when you witnessed the martyrdom, the crucifixion, and the death of your divine Son, look upon me with eyes of compassion and awaken in my heart a tender commiseration for those sufferings, as well as a sincere detestation of my sins, in order that, being disengaged from all undue affections for the passing joys of this earth, I may long for the eternal Jerusalem, and that henceforth all my thoughts and all my actions may be directed toward this one most desirable object. Honor, glory, and love to our divine Lord Jesus, and to the holy and immaculate Mother of God. Amen.

The origin of the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows dates back to the twelfth century, but it was not until 1667 that the Vatican officially approved a feast for Our Lady of Sorrows. Then, in 1814, Pope Pius VII added the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows to the Roman Catholic calendar of saints. He assigned it to the third Sunday in September. In 1913, Pope Pius X changed the date of the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows to September 15, the date on which it is still celebrated today.

The sorrows to which the title, Our Lady of Sorrows, refers are the seven sorrows that the Blessed Virgin suffered during the life and death of her Son, Jesus Christ:

The Prophecy of Simeon (Luke 2:34-35)

The Flight into Egypt (Matthew 2:13)

The Loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:43-45)

Mary Meets Jesus on the Way to Calvary (Luke 23:26)

Jesus Dies on the Cross (John 19:25)

Mary Receives the Body of Jesus in Her Arms (Matthew 27:57-59)

The Body of Jesus is Placed in the Tomb (John 19:40-42)

By chance (or was it divine intervention?) Our Lady of Sorrows featured prominently in my discovery of my Danko family origins. Several years ago, one of my cousins faxed me copies of several photographs and cards his parents had obtained when they visited Poland. Since the copies I had were faxes of photocopies, the images were rendered almost unrecognizable. Fortunately, someone had written, in Polish, a description on the reverse side of each image.

A picture of Our Lady of Sorrows in the parish of Dubiecko, Poland… originating from the end of the sixteenth century.

A souvenir from the Dubiecko parish. The altar of Our Lady of Sorrows in the Dubiecko parish, to which belongs the village of Nienadowa, from which came the parents of Mr. Joseph Danko from the U.S.A.

Here was Our Lady of Sorrows, leading me to the village where my Danko grandparents lived (Nienadowa, Poland), and the parish where they worshipped (Dubiecko, Poland)!

The following autumn, I traveled to Poland and visited the parish church in Dubiecko. I arrived at the church shortly before noon, but found both the church and the rectory tightly locked with not a soul in sight. By luck (or was it again divine providence?), just as I was preparing to leave, a local nun came to ring the church bells and say the Angelus. She opened the door to the church and invited me in.

Once inside the church, my eyes fixed on the altar. There was the Altar of Our Lady of Sorrows, just as on the faxed photocopy my cousin sent me. Immediately above the crucifix on the main altar, was the picture of Our Lady of Sorrows.

The nun explained to me about the history of the church. She told me that my grandparents would not have known this church building; it was constructed long after they emigrated to America. During the time my ancestors lived in Nienadowa, parishioners worshipped in a small chapel that was located on the same site as the present church.

After leaving the church, I visited the parish cemetery where my ancestors were buried and found many graves with the surnames of my ancestors. I then visited the village of Nienadowa and discovered that there were still Dankos living there. I had a very enjoyable visit with them. I returned to the rectory in Dubiecko during the hours it was open and the pastor permitted me to search the parish records. To my delight and amazement, I found the first of many records for my Danko ancestors.

Since that trip, Our Lady of Sorrows has always held a special place in my heart. On this day, September 15, the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, I plan to meditate on the seven sorrows of Mary, to remind myself of the significance she has for the faithful in the parish of Dubiecko, and to thank her for the role she played in helping me find my ancestors.

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